Too big to fail? The obvious way to remove systemic risk is to distribute risk by taking single points of failure out of the equation. Small is beautiful. How did we kickstart the economy after the 1980s fall? Pulling apart huge conglomerates like Hanson, for one. The same needs to happen now to really get the economy moving. We need to make it a lot easier to identify winners and losers. I was expecting a lot more demerger activity already this time around, whether voluntary or enforced.

Or as Neelie Kroes, EU competition director memorably put it this week:

“Some banks Are Too Big To Fail. However no banks are too big to restructure”.